What's new?

Well, the little man is really not so little any more, and I am not sure exactly when that happened. He is 7 1/2 months old!!! All of a sudden, the sleepers I purchased not too long ago when Daddy said "he is never going to fit into those", he is now stretching them out! As you have seen in a previous post, he started by scooting or army crawling for a little while. It didn't take him too long to realize that he could get to his destination much faster if he would bend his knees and use his legs. It took him a few days to get the right sequence down, but at 7 months old, he was crawling at a speed that surprises both of us and is now all over the place!!! Check out the video!

I left the living room for no more than a second, maybe two, but it was just long enough for Gabriel to switch directions completely in order to get fuzzy kitty into a head lock! She took it like a complete trooper. She loves her baby G and he most certainly returns that love for her!

Saturday, June 27th 2009, Gabriel said his first word. He said "Da dy" while touching his papas face! Now of coarse daddy was coaching him at the time, but it did seem like he knew what he was saying. He hasn't said it again since. I didn't see it, but I did hear it, and it awesome!!!! He has now mastered his Na's, Ma's, Ba's and Idy (what we think is supposed to by Kitty). He says MaMa, and this he does say pretty consistently, along with DaDa. Little G is now working on his Ta's. Check out this video!

He can sit himself up all by himself now from a crawling position as well as from laying down. Little G is working on feeding himself with a spoon. This is going as well as one could expect from a 7 month old.......it's messy! But he has fun with it, and LOVES to eat his spoon!

Having a mobile baby changes everything! We went from being so excited about his new ability to roll over (see earlier post, Miles Stones), to trying to change his diaper and saying...."Gabriel, Gabriel, Stop......rolling over. Just....need.......to......change.....diaper!" He is simply ALL over the place!!! Just recently, while being watched by his daddy, he tried to follow me up the stairs. You could tell that he understood how he needed to do it, but just couldn't get his leg up on the step in order to get the leverage to pull himself up. So it looks like we may have to invest in baby gates a bit sooner than originally anticipated. We also have to take his crib down to the lowest level now because he is starting to pull himself to standing in his crib!

This child doesn't ever just relax! There is one exception to this, and that is when he is outside in our hammock! He just loves looking up at the trees to watch the birdies.

He is so observant and you can tell that he is processing and taking it all in. We have been working with saying "not for babies" when he is inevitably crawling toward something he shouldn't (which is more often than not). Thanks to my brilliant brother and sister-in-law! They do this with my niece and nephew and it works!!! I think that he has kind of caught on. Sometimes he just doesn't care and tries to do it anyway.

He pretty much holds his own bottle and sippy cup all the time now, which is great for mom and dad!

He has been known to use his feet to assist with the longer bottles!

Gabriel knows "up" and "down" and gladly plays the game with us by grabbing our fingers so he can pull himself up and down! He also loves to dance, Thanks to GramA! His favorite song is anything his GramA sings to him....and I mean ANYTHING! He also loves to play "pat, pat, pat". He likes to pull himself up from sit to stand, and is able stand all by himself....of coarse, with mommy and daddy there "just in case". He is one very strong and determined little man!

Thank you to Grama and Grandpa for babysitting so much this past month so mommy can make some money and get caught up with her real estate business!!!! I LOVE spending time with my Grandparents!!!!!

Lots of love to all!